The vending industry has been besieged with an ongoing issue of vandalism and break-ins. Vandalism and break-ins result in the loss of currency stored in the machines, costs for fixing the machines, and sales losses while the machines are inoperable due to damage.
One common style of vending machine in use over the years generally includes an outer door that has a steel vertical “column” on the non-hinged side of the cabinet door that houses the money, vending machine logic systems, a locking system, a user interface, and, a paper currency validator. The user interface may include, and often does include, vend select buttons, a display, a coin entry, a coin eject button and a coin return cavity. Additionally, the outer door of these machines typically incorporates a large panel beside the vertical column that is used for advertising. This type of machine configuration may be referred to herein as a side-column machine referring to the position of the vertical column on the outer door.
More recently, machines have been developed for vending soft drinks where the vertical column is located at a mid point between the hinged and opening sides of the outer door. Such a vending machine is manufactured and sold by The Vendo Company, Fresno, Calif., under the model designation Pepsi High Visibility Vendor (“HVV”). This type of machine may be referred to herein as a center-column machine, referring to the relative location of the column in the outer door. As with the earlier vending machine types this center vertical column includes one or more customer interface access points such as a coin entry, an eject actuator, a card reader, a coin return cavity, and a paper currency validator. However, unlike prior vending machines, the vend-select actuators on the HVV-style machine are located to the left and right of the vertical column.
As used herein, the vending machine front is considered to be the area where the user interfaces are located.
There are many security devices in the marketplace today that have incrementally improved security of specific areas of the vending column. These devices are designed to thwart attempts to gain access to the vending machines through external attacks. An external attack is being defined as a method using any other device other than what was intended to gain access to the inside of the vending machine. Examples of this type of attack are: prying the door with a crowbar, drilling or sawing through door lock and latch components, hammering in vulnerable panels and attached equipment such as the paper currency validator and the product select buttons of the vending machine. These attacks are typically focused on the column area of the vending machine because the money and the locking system are housed inside the column.
The current security devices available on the market are typically focused on preventing specific attacks or attacks on a specific area or device on the machine. For instance, there are devices designed to locally cover and fortify the coin entry area. There are also devices that cover and fortify the paper currency validator. These devices however, leave other areas of the vertical column still vulnerable. Combining separate select devices for fortifying more than one area poses the problem of leaving non-integrated seams between fortification devices which can become a point of attack and present an unsightly hodge-podge of connectors and connections. Another problem is that disparate fortification devices may not even fit together, with one device accommodating desired points of attachment to the exclusion of another device, for example.
There are also devices that provide a secondary external lock such as a padlock and the like to the outer door. Often these devices are of a design that, which may be practical to add to vending machines which are placed outside, they often do not allow for attachment to vending machines that are placed indoors, such as within a hotel. For example, one common design consists of a lock mounted to the side of the vending machine. In particular, the lock consists of a padlock or the like that is attached to a pair of brackets wherein one bracket is attached to the side of the vending machine cabinet and the other bracket is attached to the outer door. Due to the space required to access this secondary lock, this design can be unsuitable where it is desired to bank vending machines side-by-side, or place the side of the vending machine against a wall.
Another prior art design consists of a lock mounted proximate to the bottom front of the vending machine. In particular, the lock consists of a pair of arms wherein one arm is attached to, and extends from, the bottom of the vending machine outer door toward the consumer or front side of the door. The other arm is attached to the bottom of the vending machine cabinet and extends past the door of the vending machine when the door is closed. The arms are secured together with a padlock or the like that can be attached to the portions of the arms extending from the bottom front of the vending machine. As expected, mounting a lock near the floor can result in the lock being susceptible to fouling by contaminants such as dirt, and people tripping on it. In addition, the protrusion of the arms into the consumer space can result in unpleasant contact with the ankles of customers and persons servicing the machine. The proximity of such a device to the ground also causes a noticeable inconvenience to those servicing the machines which may cause them to leave the padlock off of the machine between service sessions, rendering the device useless.
The unique invention disclosed herein provides an integrated solution for many types of common external vending machine vandalism attacks, while providing added security benefits and structural enhancements to the integrity and overall operation of the vending machine door.